Nicandro Durante: BAT CEO

Nicandro Durante has joint Brazilian and Italian nationality. His parents came from the Lazio region near Rome, Italy and moved in the 1950s to Sao Paulo, Brazil during a peak in European migration to South America. Nicandro’s father was connected with the shipping industry then took up a job with Pirelli, the Italian tire company. 

Nicandro graduated in business administration and economics from the Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro. He then spent the next three years working in finance in two Brazilian companies then joined British American Tobacco’s(BAT) Brazilian subsidiary Souza Cruz in 1981. Working for Souza Cruz was a big advantage for Nicandro as the firm had operations from tobacco plantations to producing the final product and delivering it to retail outlets. Thus he experienced and fully understood the whole chain of tobacco production, manufacturing and sales. 

His various job positions at BAT enabled him to work in different parts of the world. He moved to the United Kingdom in 1995. Then Nicandro became Finance Director in Hong Kong in 1997. He was back again in Brazil in 2000 as Finance Director and then in 2002 he was appointed President of Souza Cruz. 

Nicandro continued to rise up the corporate ladder with more and more important responsibilities. In 2006 he was appointed BAT’s Director of Africa &  Middle East. In 2008 he was promoted to COO. In September 2010 he was appointed Chief Executive Designate and the following year became CEO. In the process he became the first non-Briton to run BAT. 

While the company is based in the United Kingdom it makes less than 1 percent of its sales in that country. Thus having someone not from that place isn’t a disadvantage at all since BAT does sells it products in 180 countries. 

The avid marathoner, Nicandro runs one of the largest tobacco companies in the world. There is a lot of controversy regarding the tobacco industry, Nicandro himself smokes cigars and believes at the end of the day it’s all a matter of personal choice. 

Carlos Brito: AB Inbev CEO

Carlos Alves de Brito was born in 1960 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.  He earned a degree in Mechanical Engineering from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. He worked for Shell Oil and Daimler Benz.

Carlos was working for Shell Oil and had been accepted to Stanford Business School but couldn’t afford it. This was in 1987 and through a friend of a friend met Jorge Paulo Lemann who along with partners at Brazilian investment bank Banco Garantia ran a scholarship program for promising young people in their early careers.  Carlos got the scholarship.

After earning an MBA degree at Stanford, Carlos joined Brahma in 1989. This was a Rio de Janeiro-based brewer Lemann and his friends just bought. Carlos worked under Marcel Telles, a partner of Lemann and learned the art of cost cutting. Carlos would later be known for being extremely accomplished as a cost cutting executive who also had a knack for solving problems.

He rose through the ranks at Brahma. The firm merged with Sao Paulo-based competitor Antarctica in 1999 to for Cia de Bebidas das Americas, or Ambev. Carlos was appointed CEO of Ambev in 2004. Just a few months later Ambev announced a merger with Belgian beer giant Interbrew which had brands like Stella Artois and Beck’s.  Interbrew, the third-largest brewery, bought Ambev, the fifth-largest, for $11.5 billion to form InBev which instantly became the No. 1 beermaker in the world.

Carlos became zone president of North America and moved to Toronto.  He became CEO of Inbev at the end of 2005 at only 45 years of age. In 2008 Anheuser-Bush (AB) was successfully taken over forming AB Inbev. Later 1,400 employees lost their jobs. Carlos also promoted bright stars from lower ranks at AB. He was able to shave-off $2.25 billion in expenses.

Carlos and his team are fond of numbers measuring employee performance and promotion is always based on merit, laggards don’t stay long in the company. Some like his management approach others don’t but one thing for sure it has helped AB Inbev continue to grow and profit.

Luiz Trabuco Cappi: Banco Bradesco CEO

Born on October 6, 1951, Luiz Carlos Trabuco Cappi began working when he was 12 years old at a textile factory before joining a small department store in Marilla, a coffee-producing town around 250 miles west of Sao Paulo. He spent his early years running errands to Banco Bradesco, the second-largest non-government bank in Brazil.  Perhaps even then he already harbored thoughts of running the bank one day.

Luiz graduated from Faculdade de Filosofia, Ciencias e Letras de Sao Paulo, with a graduate degree in Social Psychology at Fundacao Escola de Sociologia e Politica de Sao Paulo. In April 1969, he finally began his career at Bradesco where he once ran errands to as a young boy.  He has held a number of positions with the banking sector. Luiz has held the position of Chief Financial Officer, heading Bradesco Insurance where he excelled and ultimately responsible for the listing of Bradesco at Level 2 in the New York Stock Exchange.

On October 10, 2009 Luiz became the Chief Executive Officer of Banco Bradesco.

Roberto Egydio Setubal: Itaù Unibanco Holding CEO

Roberto Egydio Setubal earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Production Engineering from Escola Politécnica Da Universidade De São Paulo in 1977. He went on to earn a Master’s Degree in Engineering from Stanford University.

Roberto has had a distinguished career in the banking industry. Among various positions he has held at Utaù Unibanco include being general manager from 1990 to 1994. Roberto has served as executive vice president of Itausa since May 1994 and has served as director since April 1995 and president and chief executive officer since April 1994.  He has been vice chairman of the board of directors since March 2003.

Outside of the bank he was the president of the Brazilian Federation of Banks (Federacao Brasileira de Bancos – FEBRABAN) and of the National Federation of Banks (Federacao Nacional de Bancos or FENABAN) from April 1997 to March 2001. Among others Roberto serves on the international advisory committee of the New York Stock Exchange.

Itaù Unibanco Holding is one of the largest companies in the world. Founded in 1944 and based in Brazil it has sales of $67.16 billion with 95,696 employees. 

Murilo Pinto de Oliveira Ferreira: Industry Veteran

When government owns a substantial part of a company you can bet it will raise a lot of noise publicly when the company is not doing well. Government is basically run by politicians. They may genuinely be concerned but they also get political mileage. They will want changes in top management.

The problem here is if the one who will get appointed is the favorite of some powerful politician and may not be the right person for the job. Fortunately for Vale SA, which is considered the second largest mining company in the world, the choice in 2011 was an industry veteran.

The one chosen to lead the mining giant was Murilo Pinto de Oliveira Ferreira, he was appointed as CEO of Vale in the early part of 2011. Prior to his appoint the Brazilian government which has direct and indirect stakes in Vale had frequently criticized the company in recent years for not spending more on domestic steel and fertilizer output to generate jobs.

His appointment eased concerned about a less qualified person holding the CEO post. Ferreira is an over 30 year industry veteran. He started his professional career at Vale in 1977 as a financial and economic analyst. He would later perform important roles such as CEO of Vale Inco, which currently integrates Vale’s operations in Canada.

They chose the right man at the right time calming market concerns.

Carlos Ghosn: The Great Transnational CEO

Perhaps there are other CEOs who experienced a life living in different countries. None has come out as super achieving as Carlos Ghosn. Carlos was born on May 9, 1954 in Porto Velho, Brazil.  His grandfather emigrated from Lebanon to Brazil at the age of 13.

In 1960 Carlos along with his mother and three siblings moved to Beirut, Lebanon. He was six years old at the time. Carlos finished his secondary studies at a Jesuit school in Lebanon. He earned an engineering degree in France at the École Polytechnique in 1978 with the final year’s specialization at the École de Mines de Paris.

Carlos joined tire giant Michelin in 1978 as manager of the Le Puy plant in France.  He eventually became Chief Operating Officer of Michelin’s South American activities in Brazil. Carlos job was to turn around a losing operation which was being battered by the hyperinflation in Brazil.

What he did next would help define his management style. Carlos formed cross-functional management teams to determine best practices among the French, Brazilian and other nationalities working in the South American division. The experience in multicultural Brazil formed the bases of his cross-cultural management style and emphasis on diversity as a core business asset. The division returned to profitability in two years.

With his successful stint in South America he was appointed Chairman and CEO of Michelin North America in 1989. Looking for better opportunities he joined Renault as Executive Vice President in 1996. Aside from handling activities in South America Carlos was also responsible for research, automobile engineering and development, manufacturing, powertrain operations, and purchasing.

Renault bought a significant stake in Nissan in 1999. Carlos joined Nissan as CEO in June 1999 while still maintaining his responsibilities at Renault. Nissan was in trouble at that time with debt of $20 billion and only 3 of 48 models making profits.

He executed a painful downsizing removing 21,000 Nissan jobs (around 14 percent of the total workforce).  Carlos also sold prized assets. In one year’s time he was able to return the company to profitability and continues to do so.  He became CEO of Nissan in June 2001

Aside from his top post at Nissan Carlos is also now the Chairman and CEO or Renault. Carlos Ghosn, a one of a kind transnational super achiever.